1. Field
One or more embodiments relate to a method of processing a three-dimensional (3D) image, and more particularly, to the storing, processing, and rendering of 3D image information that is obtained using a depth camera and a general imaging camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, research is being conducted regarding a scheme that can obtain a depth image using a depth camera and obtain a color image using a general Charge-Coupled Device (CCD)/Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) camera, and then merge the obtained depth image with the color image to thereby obtain three-dimensional (3D) information.
The obtained 3D information may be represented according to various types of schemes such as a scheme of using a triangular mesh, a scheme of using a point cloud, etc. The obtained 3D information may be transformed into an efficient representation structure through an appropriate modeling process. The processing and rendering performance of the transformation or after the transformation may be greatly affected by the efficiency of the data structure representing the 3D information.
A mesh-based representation may connect adjacent pixels, generate mesh connection information, and thereby process an image based on regularity of the image. The mesh-based representation may relatively easily remove noise, a hole, etc. that may occur in obtaining a depth image. However, in order to generate a single 3D mesh model from a plurality of images, instead of a single image, the mesh-based representation may need an appropriate stitching operation for an overlapping portion. Generally, the stitching operation may be very complex.
A point-based representation may spatially merge 3D points obtained from a plurality of images. Therefore, in comparison to the mesh-based representation, the point-based representation may generate an efficient 3D model. The point data may be stored in a spatial data structure such as kd-tree or octree. The point-based representation may need to efficiently store 3D information and color information for processing such as efficient surface estimation and point re-sampling.
As described above, according to the conventional art, color image data and depth image data of 3D information is stored together.